Rube Burrow, king of outlaws, and his band of train robbers

by George W. Agee

The Pinkerton detectives, on their arrival at Duck Hill, were unable to find a trace of the robbers. There was no clew from which to begin a search for them. Whence the robbers came, whither they had gone, whether on horseback or afoot, was not known. At this juncture Detective D. C. Hennessey, of New Orleans, who recently met his death at the hands of assassins in that city, and a man of undoubted ability in his profession, having received a descriptive circular of the robbers, telegraphed the officials of the Southern Express Company as follows: “Description of the robbers received. I am well aware as to who they are, and am satisfied I can get them.”

A conference was at once arranged with Hennessey, who declared the Duck Hill robbery to be the work of Eugene Bunch. An unfortunate combination of circumstances here ensued to corroborate Hennessey’s view. Bunch answered Burrow’s description with great exactness. The former was reliably ascertained to have been in northern Louisiana a few days prior to the robbery, and, therefore, within easy reach of Duck Hill; Bunch had an intimate friend who answered Engineer Law’s description of the smaller man who stood guard over him at Duck Hill.

The detectives had, meantime, traced two men riding out south from the scene of the robbery in the direction of Honey Island, in the Pearl River, a favorite resort with Bunch; and, still more remarkable, one of the horses ridden corresponded with the one owned by Bunch’s comrade in Louisiana, who was known to have assisted him in his flight from Derby, Miss. The chase that followed, therefore, under the leadership of the Pinkertons, was organized to find Bunch, and not Burrow. From New Orleans to Texas, to Monterey and Mexico City, to Los Angeles and San Diego, and even to San Francisco, the detectives pursued Bunch until, just as his capture seemed certain at San Francisco, he eluded the detectives by taking a Pacific coast steamer. The chase was then, after months of labor, abandoned.

Meantime, in a quiet way, the detectives of the Southern Express Company were at work on the theory that Rube Burrow was the leader in the robbery at Duck Hill. It was discovered that Rube Burrow and Joe Jackson rode away from the farm of Fletcher Stevens in Tate County, Miss., on December 1, 1888, and after paying a visit to Rube’s brother-in-law, Berryhill, who lives eighteen miles from Oxford, proceeded to Water Valley, Miss., where they spent the night; and that going thence to Duck Hill they robbed the train in the manner described. After mounting their horses, tethered in the woods some half a mile from the spot on which the robbery occurred, they rode through a drenching rain a distance of forty miles by daylight. The next day they camped in the brush, divided the spoils of the robbery, and at sundown resumed their journey. After another hard night’s ride they reached the vicinity of the Pearl River, near Philadelphia, Miss. Here, fearing the news of the deed at Duck Hill had preceded them, and that the detectives might be in waiting at the bridge, they turned their horses into the swamps and two miles north of the bridge swam the swollen current of Pearl River. Reaching the opposite bank, they continued their journey through the wilds of the forest for a few miles, and turning from the southwesterly course on which they had ridden for two days, they rode in a northeasterly direction, traveling most of the distance at night, until they reached Lamar County. Here they remained in quiet seclusion until the tragic event recorded in the next chapter occurred.

CHAPTER XI.
THE COLD-BLOODED MURDER OF MOSES GRAVES, THE POSTMASTER OF JEWELL, ALABAMA.

The reader may well ask what the detectives of the Southern Express Company were doing while these men remained in Lamar County and the adjacent country, from the time of the Duck Hill robbery until the summer of 1889.

In the contiguous counties of Lamar, Fayette and Marion the kindred of the Burrow family abounded on every hand. The homes of his kinsmen, notably Cash, Terry, Barker, Smith and Hankins, not only furnished a safe refuge for the robbers, but they were worshiped as heroes, and each household vied with the other in its fealty and loyalty to the robber chief. “Rube never robs a poor man,” they were often wont to say, forgetting that one never gets blood out of a turnip. These people were of a thriftless, restive spirit, and among them were many shrewd and cunning natures, who became the paid scouts of the outlaws. A code of signals was established, and the appearance of a detective or a stranger of any kind in that section was at once ascertained, and the information conveyed to the outlaws. The firing of a gun in a certain locality, the cracking of a whip, the blowing of a horn, and the deep-toned “ah-hoo,” as well as scores of other signals, all had their meaning. They gave the fugitives warning of the approach of danger; and so, when occasional raids were made, a house was surrounded, a trail was covered, or some solitary scout from among Rube’s clansmen was encountered, the stillness of the air would be broken by a signal which plainly told the detectives that their presence was known and the robbers were on the alert. It was even impossible to trail the messengers who carried rations to the robbers while in camp, for these were stored in the crevices of rocks and in the trunks of trees, from which coverts, at propitious times, the food would be taken.

Detective Jackson once followed Jim Cash, with a supply of provisions, to a ravine some distance from Cash’s house, and saw them hidden away in the cavernous depths of a hollow log. He concealed himself within one hundred yards of the spot, and, knowing Rube was in that locality, felt sure he would be able to pick him off with his trusty Winchester when he came for his rations. Jackson crouched behind the huge trunk of a tree, in breathless expectation of Rube’s appearance, when a shot fired from the vicinity of Cash’s house dashed his hopes. Half an hour later Cash walked cautiously down the hill, took the food away, and tied a flaming red cloth to the top of an adjacent bush, thus exhibiting for Rube the red signal of danger. Cash had, on his return, with the cunning of his class, discovered strange footsteps on his trail, and rightly divined that his movements had been watched. Although the detective took down the signal, Rube had doubtless seen it. If not, acting on the signal previously given, Rube missed his dinner that day.

Thus fed and harbored, the outlaws remained in Lamar County and the adjacent country all the spring and summer of 1889, without any event of note occurring until on the 7th of July, when Rube Burrow murdered, in cold blood, the postmaster of Jewell, Ala.

Rube had concluded that a wig and false whiskers were necessary in his line of business. His robberies were now of such frequent occurrence that he sought to disguise himself more closely, and after writing for a catalogue and selecting what he desired in that line, he wrote the following letter to a Chicago house: